The headline election was, of course, the Corby by-election triggered by the resignation of Louise Mensch who blames herself for the collapse of the Tories. Apparently it's all down to her resignation - if she hadn't resigned the Tories would have still been popular. Poor delusional lamb. UKIP hasn't contested Corby before but Margot Parker took 14% of the vote to come a clear third. The Lib Dems bombed and lost their deposit. The BNP vote also collapsed and it looks like fellow extremists, the English Democrats, have benefited from that. The Greens did even worse than the BNP and the English Democrats which is an achievement in itself.
Chris Cassidy put in an excellent performance in Manchester Central, coming fourth in the by-election there just 4 votes behind the third-placed Tory. Manchester used to be a Lib Dem stronghold but they finished up with just 10% of the Labour vote. Turnout was about 18% which is thought to be the lowest turnout in a parliamentary by-election since the second war.
Simon Ziegler also got an excellent result in Cardiff South & Penarth, a Labour safe seat since 1945. He came fifth with over 6% of the vote behind Labour, Tories, the Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru.
Today also saw the first (and hopefully last) Police & Crime Commissioner elections. The turnout was appalling, failing to reach more than 14.5% average across the country and one polling station in Wales had a turnout of zero. Northamptonshire had the highest turnout with just 20%. With such low turnouts it's hard to see the results as anything other than illegitimate. The number of independents elected is reassuring but the majority were won by Labour and the Tories meaning most of our police forces have been reduced to arms of those two political parties. It's unclear at the moment whether UKIP came third or fourth in terms of vote share in the PCC elections with one result still outstanding but what is clear is that UKIP have comprehensively beaten the Lib Dems in terms of results and are undeniably the UK's third party.
The best news of the day, though, has to be John Prescott losing to a Tory in his own back yard. The election for Humberside Police was widely believed to be a straight two-horse race between UKIP's Godfrey Bloom MEP and millionaire socialist class warrior Lord John Prescott. The look on his face is almost worth the estimated £75-100m cost of running these sham elections. Almost ...
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